Thoughts on Kingdom, Church, and Grace from an American living in Hong Kong

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Superman & Apollo 13

Items from two of my favorite interests, Superman and the American space program, netted big bucks at auctions this week.

The very first comic introducing Superman to the world, Action Comics Issue 1, sold for US$ 2.1 million . Incidently, the the pristine copy of the comic from June 1938 was owned by actor Nicholas Cage who is known for being a big Superman fan. Cage had bought the comic in 1997 for US$ 150,000. so it appears the 2 million + sale of the issue made Mr. Cage more than a few pesos . For me though its hard to imagine paying 2 million dollars for something that says "10 cents" on the cover!

The other item, handwritten notes written by astronaut Jim Lovell during the ill fated moon expedition, Apollo 13, sold for a more modest US$ 388,375. The now 83 year old Lovell said that the notes are the mathematical computations he did by hand in order to compute their emergency trip back to earth after the explosion on their spacecraft threw them off course.

Says Lovell, "We didn't have the technology back then that we have now. I didn't even have a calculator to do the arithmetic. I had to ask the people in Houston to double-check my numbers."

As much as I love Superman I must admit if I could have either of the items, the handwritten notes by Lovell would be my choice. What those guys did 40 years ago was absolutely heroic and the kind of story we should be passing on to our children and our grandchildren. A story of what men can do when they need to do the impossible...and did!